Court Comes Home

The pandemic led to virtual hearings and while these were lucrative for some senior lawyers, junior ones were either out of work or had to change their professions in order to survive

- Dr Swati Jindal Garg

EVER since the Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, normal life has taken a massive beating down. Staying indoors has Leven though people have slowly and steadily started taking baby steps out of the sanctuary of their private sanctums, normalcy as we knew it is still far away. The legal fraternity in India too bore the brunt of the lockdown as the normal functioning of courts was affected and litigation was reduced to a large extent owing to relaxation in the limitation granted by the Supreme Court through its orders in a suo motu petition.

Virtual hearings have been taking place in the Supreme Court for more than 18 months. The Court released various SOPs on giving discretionary powers to judges and the parties involved in litigation to give their acceptance to physical hearings. The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), which was rooting for more physical hearings, however, opposed this SOP. Responding to this opposition, the Court released another SOP wherein physical hearings were made compulsory for two days in a week.

Just like one man's sorrow is another man's joy, the SCBA is pushing for more physical hearings, while most lawyers have simply welcomed the return of it. “We still want the resumption of full physical hearings for all days," Vikas Singh, president of SCBA, reportedly, said in a Supreme Court WhatsApp chat group when asked about the resumption of Court hearings for two days a week. "The Supreme Court has acted on our representation partially; there should be more [changes] coming." There is another section of the legal fraternity that is stiffly opposing the resumption of physical hearings, citing the inevitable onset of the third wave of Covid-19.